


Tumor

by KR Grim (KR_Grim)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Speculative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KR_Grim/pseuds/KR%20Grim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Step One to defeat Bec Noir: Blow up the Green Sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumor

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I wrote after wondering just how wonky Time and Space are beyond the Furthest Ring.

Ten hours and twenty-five minutes left in the reckoning, and Dave had just given Rose his and Jade’s map. Her dream self had the map and was dragging the Tumor along. John had removed it perfectly, and now it was up to Rose to take it off to the eldritch horrors that awaited her. She sped off towards the Furthest Ring, The Horrorterrors were waiting for her. They would be anxious to see her up close. Such a tiny thing, like Glb’golyb’s charge would be, had been, and was on Alternia. Time flowed differently there, but as Rose traversed the fringes, she understood it.

The Furthest Ring, six hours, twelve minutes until the detonation of the Tumor. If Rose hadn’t had the Thorns, her dreamself would have been better off. But hearing the voices of those things the mind should not be able to comprehend is a taxing experience, and their mad clarity is a double-edged sword, providing her with both incomparable guidance and unfathomable insanity. She had taken them perhaps too much to heart, understood them more than they understood themselves. And it was this that had caused them to veer her into this strange semi-orbit, locked in a time of six hours, twelve minutes. Rose hadn’t tried to move for six hours, and yet the countdown had stopped for her. She giggled, an involuntary thing. Rose Lalonde had known that she would have to be swimming in this eddy for quite some subjective time, but she hadn’t quite believed Dave when he said that the Tumor’s timer would stop. Another wonder of the Furthest Ring.

The Furthest Ring, four hundred thirteen milennia until the detonation of the Tumor. Rose was lost. Completely, utterly, and painfully lost. The map was of no use to her anymore, and had in fact almost disappeared in a spacetime eddy that had sent a part of the map to god knows when and where. The Tumor’s ticking was slow and ponderous, as though it were counting backwards. Rose continued as best she could, looking for the point where Dave said it would make sense.

The Furthest Ring, three hours and fourteen minutes until the detonation of the Tumor. Rose had been tormented by the Green Sun. Its light lay just beyond a thin band of spacetime, and she was unsure where the entrance was. One misstep, and she would be blown up well before the Green Sun was reached. She had circled at this point, trying to spot the eddies of time and space. But it was difficult. It was too difficult. She was going to fail. She was going to die in this hellhole. And there was nothing she could — wait. There. There was the entrance she’d been looking for. There was the entrance to the domain of the Green Sun! She just had to cross at that point, and…

The Green Sun, two minutes and sixteen seconds until the detonation of the Tumor. Rose was nervous. Dave had mentioned something about a scratch, about meeting the trolls. What was going to happen to her, she wondered. Time was flowing normally again, did this mean she only had two and a quarter minutes left? Was this really her last moment, or had Dave managed to save her body? It was the first time she’d even considered this. She had thought she would be able to get the Tumor to the Green Sun before the Scratch. But… the Scratch had been almost six hours ago. They had agreed, in fact, while she was still awake, that if she hadn’t woken up in time, Dave would take her body. Or maybe she had woken up, and she hadn’t dissolved because he dream self was no longer strictly connected to her waking self. It was all very frightening all of a sudden, because she realized that, not unlike Aradia, she was faced with the possibility of total annihilation.

The Green Sun, ten seconds until the detonation of the tumor. Rose’s dream self was sweating bullets. Nine. She could feel the ominous rumblings of the Tumor under her. Eight. The Green Sun had grown more desperate, and was lashing out at her and the Tumor. Something was blocking its blows; possibly it was a gift of the wind? She couldn’t say for sure. Seven. It would have been just like John, though. Give her a gift, even though it wasn’t her birthday and this was a suicide mission. A tear rolled down her face. Six. She didn’t know why she was crying. He was just John, a stupidly goofy bucktoothed boy, even if he was, technically, their leader. Five. And he was. And it hurt her to see him bumbling through, it pained her to see him leaning on her shoulder so much, it pained to see him unable to stand by himself. Four. And now, with a bitter laugh, she remembered that he would never get the chance to speak to him. Three. She wouldn’t be able to tell him how she felt. Two. She wondered if her waking self felt the same way — that John was a special and important young man. That he was sexy as hell. That he could make her sweat when she had to.

One.

The last thought she had was a realization: “I love Egbert.” The last thing she said was a name: “John…”

Zero.


End file.
